19 January 2015

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you very much for the emails you send me every week. I really appreciate them, and I look forward to reading them every week. Wow! That's awesome that Rachel finished all her homework so much time in advance for once. I don't think that I ever got a field trip for finishing Study Island before. Study Island was new when I was in school. I don't know if we ever had required homework for Study Island, it was something more like we had time in school to do it. Wow, Rachel, sounds like you have quite the week scheduled with the eye doctor and the orthodontist! Mom and Dad, that's awesome that you were able to run into those people from Eau Claire! That's super awesome! {At the Temple, we ran into people from a ward Dawn attended when she was growing up. It is always a small world where the church is concerned!} I hope the Pinewood Derby {in the Princeton Ward} goes well. I'm still kinda' bummed that my steel car axle is broken. *sigh* oh, well. I still get excited about Pinewood Derbies! That should be a fun experience.

When I was back home I never really heard about exchanges with the missionaries, but now exchanges are such a common thing. It's weird going a few weeks without an exchange actually. Speaking of exchanges, we had one this last week. I stayed in Durrës and Elder Roemer went to Elbasan. It was really awesome to work with another missionary for the day! When I drove to Elbasan to pick up Elder Roemer, we ate something called bugaçe. It's like bread, soaked in melted butter, and filled with byrek dough, soaked in butter, coated in salt, and then dipped in melted butter. It's so much... Most people only get half of a bun, but the other elders told me that for the first time, you have to get a whole. So I got it. And I ate it. And I regretted it. But I loved it!! It's weird because the ONLY place to get bugaçe is in Elbasan. No one else has it. Crazy huh?

This week Elder Roemer and I had an amazing week! We were blessed by the Lord so much! We were able to teach tons of lessons this week. We reached 20 lessons! For the first time in my mission! It's super difficult, but possible. I was really happy to finally reach that goal! The Lord has blessed us so much in this work during the week! I'm super excited about missionary work here in Durrës. It's also really awesome to be a zone leader, because you get to hear how all the missionaries in the zone are doing during the week. It's awesome to hear their success stories and to encourage them! There is one area that has normally been a harder area to work, but we've seen so many miracles happening in the Lord's work there. It's super awesome to see that! Do you remember Esmeralda? The girl that got baptized in October? She's super awesome still. She actually has a calling as a Relief Society teacher! And she's been bringing her two younger sisters to church for quite a while. Both of her younger sisters accepted a baptismal date this last week. They are super solid and I'm excited to see them progress to baptism! They should be getting baptized at the end of February! The youngest one, Alketa, is only 10 years old, but she's read until the middle of 3 Nephi already! When she said that in our lesson all of us were super surprised. I thought she misunderstood the question and she had just picked a chapter at random and had read it. But she said no. She has read from the beginning until that point! It's so awesome. Those girls are so prepared for the Gospel already. It was a great testimony builder to me that the Lord is working with people and He's doing His work as well. The Lord has hastened His work, and I believe that He's still hastening it, and that He'll be hastening it until the end. It's like that last leg of a race, it's a full out sprint until the end now. We're seeing that in so many ways. We're seeing it through people that are prepared for the Gospel, through the means we have to do missionary work (He is the Gift, Because of Him, Social Media, etc.) I've really seen that the Lord is willing to work with us, as long as we are willing to work with Him. When we keep His commandment, when we study the Holy Scriptures, when we obey with a willing heart and exactness, that is when the Lord is most willing to give His help. He won't give us the same amount of help if we are just sitting around lazily, as He would if we are "always abounding in good works" (Mosiah5:15). I've seen the love that the Lord has and I know His mighty hand is still stretched out toward us. All we have to do is reach out. The way we reach out is through obedience and good works. I'm very thankful for the opportunity that I have to be a missionary here in Albania. I know that this IS the Lord's work, and that we are blessed greatly when we join in.

Ju falënderoj shumë për lutjet tuaja dhe për dashurinë tuaj. Unë ju dua shumë. Kalofshi bukur. U bekofshit me mrekuj në jetët tuaja! Javë të mbarë!

Me Dashuri të madhe,

Elder Watson